A US lawyer wrongfully arrested over the Madrid train bombings in 2004 is suing the US government. Brandon Mayfield, 38, was held for two weeks when the FBI linked him to fingerprints found in Spain – but later said it was wrong and apologised. Mr Mayfield, a convert to Islam, says he was targeted because he is a Muslim.
Category Archives: State Oppression
Guantánamo abuse ‘allowable’
Interrogators at Guantánamo Bay degraded and abused a key prisoner, forcing him to wear a bra and threatening him with a dog, military investigators claimed yesterday. But in a military report pre sented before the Senate armed services committee, the investigators said the treatment of the Saudi man, described as the “20th hijacker” in the September 11 attacks, did not amount to torture.
The man was not named during the hearing, but the Pentagon identified him as Mohamed al-Qahtani. The Senate panel heard that he was forced to wear a leash and subjected to investigations for up to 20 hours a day.
See also Washington Post, 14 July 2005
Calderoli: answer Islam with Crusades
“Islam has to be declared illegal until Islamists are prepared to renounce those parts of their pseudo political and religious doctrine glorifying violence and oppression of other cultures and religions. Islam promotes hatred and we now, after having tried the way of love, have to answer with the crusades of western peoples who still remember the battle of Lepanto”, wrote Roberto Calderoli, Northern League coordinator, in an editorial published in the party’s daily newspaper ‘La Padania’.
“Battles are not only won by armies but also by values. Unfortunately we lost those values when we gave up our Christian roots, our identity, our culture. The West is losing its battle. A world condemning Oriana Fallaci and approving a judge who frees terrorists taking them for soldiers has already lost the game. We are facing a real war where the enemy uses terrorism and we answer with flower power. Terrorism cannot be fought by offering peace but only by striking back the same way. Today we’re crying for the victims of London attacks together with their families and we suffer with those wounded, but tomorrow we have to fight back using the same arms.”
Needless to say, this meets with the wholehearted approval of Robert Spencer.
Telegraph poll on attitudes towards British Muslims
A YouGov poll for the Telegraph finds that only 23% of people believe that “practically all British Muslims are peaceful, law-abiding citizens who deplore the bombings as much as everyone else”. A further 64% believe while that the “great majority” of British Muslims are peaceful, there is a “dangerous minority” willing to support or engage in terrorism. Another 10% believe that a “large proportion” of British Muslims “are prepared to condone or even carry out acts of terrorism”. Furthermore, 81% believe that “the threat is so serious that the authorities should act against suspected terrorists even if they have not committed any offence”.
Blair’s crackdown wins backing of Jihad Watch
“Good measures all. Why doesn’t the United States adopt similar ones?”
Blair’s attack on civil liberties meets with the wholehearted approval of Robert Spencer.
At-a-glance: new terror plans
A useful summary of Blair’s main proposals.
Guantánamo fuels hatred of West: OSCE report
The US must close the notorious Guantanamo prison, where its treatment of prisoners fans hatred of the West and recruits more people to join Al-Qaeda, Europe’s main human rights representative concluded in a new report made public on Friday, July 1.
“The longer the detention is in the camps the more the hatred against the US and the West becomes anchored in hearts and minds,” said Belgian Senate President Anne-Marie Lizin.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which commissioned the report from its human rights representative, will vote next week whether to accept its findings, Reuters reported.
Dutch draft law to monitor imams’ sermons
The Dutch parliament is currently debating a draft law presented by the government on combating Islamic radicalism, including a TV show to monitor sermons delivered by imams.
The controversial measure drew rebuke from a prominent Dutch Muslim scholar who told IslamOnline.net it would deepen Muslim isolation in the country.
According to the 32-item measure, one mosque sermon would be televised each week without the prior knowledge of the imam. It would then be debated by the programme’s guests.
Minister of Immigrants and Integration Rita Verdonk told parliament the aim of this program is to draw the attention of young Dutch of foreign origin to the grave consequences of religious extremism.
‘Saudis howl for blood of Koran desecrators’
“With the debate surrounding the alleged desecration of the Koran at Guantanamo, it is easy to forget that those being held at the detention center are terrorists. If one were to believe the rhetoric coming from Saudi Arabia, its citizens held there are completely innocent and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But as we learned on September 11, 2001, this is not the case.”
Another objective summary of the Arab media from Steven Stalinsky of MEMRI. Note that Stalinsky automatically assumes the guilt of the Guantánamo detainees even though not a single one of them has received a fair trial.
Italy demands US explanation over kidnapped cleric
Italy’s relations with the US took a further blow yesterday when Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative government said it was summoning the American ambassador in Rome to explain the disappearance of a radical Muslim cleric, who was snatched from a Milan street two years ago. Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was sent via two American military bases to his native Egypt for imprisonment and interrogation. Mr Nasr was subsequently released temporarily. In telephone calls intercepted by the Italian police, the cleric said he had almost died under torture.